


Where Are You Now

by brinnabot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky is just sad and confused, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Lots of anxiety, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, immediately post-WS, the other characters appear briefly but it is Bucky-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnabot/pseuds/brinnabot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier saved Captain America after the helicarriers fell. Now he's free, with the world at his disposal, but the world also wants him dead. For someone who doesn't remember who he is, this could all prove to be a problem. Now what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Are You Now

If you were to ask him why he did it, he wouldn’t have an answer for you.

The Soldier had no clue why he pulled that man out of the water. He had no clue as to why he immediately let go of his grip on the helicarrier and dropped hundreds of feet just to pull one body out of the destruction. It was the first time he could remember where he wasn’t thinking… It was pure instinct. 

Looking down as he stood on the muddy shore, The Soldier saw the wounded man on the ground take in a shaky and shallow breath. He was alive. His gaze then wandered over to the blood soaked white fabric on the man’s torso, a wound he inflicted. A sick feeling crept into his stomach. _Why do I feel guilty?_

The slight rise and fall of the other man’s chest made him calmer somehow. A split second memory of a hand holding a cloth to the blond’s forehead appeared and shot away in his mind. The Soldier shook his head. _What was that?_

Ripping away his gaze, The Soldier turned to leave while cradling his injured arm. For the moment, all he knew was that he couldn’t stay there. He was weaponless and weak... To be found was to be killed; he wasn’t ready for that just yet.

As he walked through the brush, the long blades of grass gently hit the side of his body as he made his own path, and a chill started to creep in. The Soldier was soaked, his hair was still dripping wet, and the wind was starting to pick up. Sirens could be heard in the not so far off distance as people scrambled to save what they could from the devastation. A helicopter flew overhead, making him glance up as it turned to follow the shore. They were looking for something… or someone.

The Soldier’s arm throbbed, but he ignored it. Normally after a mission he would get himself back to a checkpoint and wait to be taken back to base where he would be treated for his injuries. But as he got farther and farther from the shore the realization came that no one was going to take him back. They hadn’t given him a checkpoint this time. They didn’t even give him his mask.

_Mission: Three targets, confirmed death by helicarrier launch time; do whatever it takes_

They never meant for him to come back from this one. He was either meant to die trying or to be killed after the fact. This thought had The Soldier stopped dead in his tracks, hyperventilating, his knees weakening. He tried to steady his shaking body by taking deep breaths but his lungs refused to cooperate.

**_“HERE! HE’S HERE!”_ **

A voice from the shore echoed in, causing The Soldier to instinctually spin around to face the sound and sharply crouch to the ground below the brush. He placed his metal hand on the ground to steady himself as he peered over to the source of the commotion. Two figures ran along the shore and stopped once they reached where The Soldier had left the blond. After a few more seconds of observation he realized who they were: his two other targets. He was surprised to see the flying soldier alive; last time he saw him he had sent him falling to his death over the side of the helicarrier. The other figure was the Black Widow, as he was told. She was certainly a force to be reckoned with.

The two of them knelt down next to their fallen comrade, one on each side of him. The flying soldier felt around the blond’s neck for a pulse, a sigh of relief overcoming him a few seconds later when he found it. He nodded to the woman, who then pulled a radio off of her belt. “Nick, we found him.” She spoke into it.

“Copy,” a voice came through on the other end of the radio, “Swinging back around to you now,” a slight pause, “Is he alive?”

“Yeah, but he’s beat pretty bad,” the woman answered, “Shot to the abdomen, no exit wound. Stab wound to the shoulder. And from first impressions his face got the worst of it. We need to get him out of here.”

“Alright, hold on until I get there, it’ll be a minute,” the voice responded, then silence.

“Hang in there, Steve,” the woman spoke down to the blond, so quiet that The Soldier could barely hear her.

“How the hell did he make it all the way over here?” the flying soldier asked, looking around him as he knelt on the ground, “He’s way too far from the wreckage to have just drifted here by accident. Looks like he was dragged out of the water if ya ask me.”

The woman’s face scrunched up, realizing her friend was right. Suddenly she got to her feet, peering around, looking for something.

The Soldier held his breath and got even lower to the ground, hoping the tall brush would hide him enough. _Shit._

The flying soldier stood up, slightly panicked. “What, what did you see something?”

After a few moments of looking, the woman’s gaze stopped dangerously close to where The Soldier was hiding. But after a couple of seconds she looked over to her friend and shook her head. “No, just thought I did,” she replied. One of her hands moved and hovered over a gun she had clipped to her belt but she didn’t move, didn’t use it.

The Soldier tensed. She knew he was there, her being at the ready to grab her gun showed him that… So why didn’t she fire? He was a wanted criminal, someone to be taken down by people like her.

Before The Soldier had time to think about escaping, a helicopter appeared above and started to descend. The whirring of the blades grew louder and louder, and the grass around him began to whip in all directions. He shielded his face from the wind and the grass as best he could while still maintaining his view of the scene.

Once the helicopter had landed nearby, a man dressed in all black with his arm in a sling jumped out and sprinted towards the three of them on the shore, motioning for them to get on board. The Soldier’s heart skipped a beat. He had killed that man, three shots and he was done… or at least so he thought. No wonder Hydra was ready to be rid of him. All four people getting ready to fly away in that helicopter had been targets of his, they were never supposed to live past today. The Soldier realized that he had failed every mission he was set out to finish… Of course they didn’t want him anymore.

The two of them nodded to the man in black and did their best to pick up the blond soldier as carefully as they could, as they didn’t have a stretcher or any other way to move him. With a bullet still inside him things could get complicated. But they did manage to get him over to the helicopter and gently set him down.

The man in black jumped back into the pilot’s seat while the flying soldier held down the blond, getting ready for take off. The woman climbed up, took a glance down at the bleeding man at her feet, and then gazed back over to where The Soldier was hiding. The strange part was that she wasn’t angry, wasn’t threatening. Her face was soft, like she was trying to convey something to him. The Soldier was confused as to why she was letting him live, but felt an odd twinge of gratefulness towards her. He knew she would also take care of the blond… take care of Steve.

The flying soldier also was concerned about his fallen friend, and as they took off The Soldier saw him shaking his head as he checked his friend’s wounds. There was something about the two of them that he trusted. He almost wanted to jump aboard with them, see things through and get himself help, but it was too late. He watched as The Black Widow and flying soldier left with Steve, and the wind slowly died down, leaving him in silence with only his thoughts.

_Steve?_

The name echoed around in his head. Before the two of them dropped into the water, the man he was fighting had said that The Soldier knew him… Did he? And he also said another name…

_James Buchanan Barnes._

_**Bucky.** _

The Soldier felt drawn to that name, but why? It couldn’t be his, he didn’t have a name, he didn’t deserve a name. 

But once it popped into his head it wouldn’t leave. It echoed and bounced around, overlapping and crashing into itself. Some of it he heard as screams, some of it he heard as pleading, begging… But the quiet echos were ones of happiness, softness. It was all too much. The Soldier squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to block it all out, but it didn’t stop. He threw his hands up to cover his ears and he grit his teeth, and when it still didn’t quiet down he screamed, **_“SHUT UP!”_**

Shooting pains darted up his right arm, knocking him back to reality. He opened his eyes and gasped, his breathing fast and shallow, and then dropped his arms and winced, remembering that his right arm was still twisted and possibly broken. The Soldier had dropped to his knees while the voices rang in his head, and he saw nothing but the tall grass around him while he cradled his hurt arm and tried to slow his breathing. Nothing made sense to him. Nothing was going right. 

The Soldier sat there and thought that maybe everything they had done to his mind was finally getting to him, that he really was broken beyond repair… Maybe they were right for not wanting to use him anymore after this mission. He was hearing things, he was letting his targets walk away free, and he saved one of them from imminent death; that’s not what he was made to do.

Taking a deep breath in, The Soldier slowly stood up while keeping a lookout to make sure no one had found him or was watching for him. But the area was clear; he was completely alone. After making a full circle sweep around him, he stopped to focus on the now destroyed SHIELD building. The helicarrier he had been on crashed at the base of building in the water after tearing off a whole side of windows. Smoke poured from the wreckage in the water as sirens continued to blare and people continued to shout and scream in panic.

A realization hit him as he observed: he almost died on that helicarrier. If the blond.. If _Steve_ hadn’t given him the chance to get out from under that beam, he would be dead. The Soldier had shot him, stabbed him, and physically beaten him, and yet Steve kept trying to save him. He was willing to die in the crash to save _him._ That had to mean something.

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes…_

Steve’s words echoed in his head as he stared out over the water, unfocused. His face tensed up, trying to remember more. _What did he say before he fell?_

_**‘Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.** _

“Steve..?” he whispered the name, and it felt like something he’d done hundreds and hundreds of times. His heart was pounding in his chest.

The Soldier remembered every mission he’d ever been sent on. Every person he’d killed, every voice he silenced, every bullet he’d shot. That was his life, and he learned to accept it. But as time went on, a feeling started to creep up on him… A feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be there, that there was something he had that was taken from him. And as he stood there near the shore, he started to wonder if that feeling was right. Maybe what he had taken from him was more than just a simple thing or object. Maybe it was a person… Maybe it was a lifetime of memories.

The weight of that thought hit him like a bullet to the chest. Everything instantly went out of sync, time suddenly started again, and something inside of him shifted. It felt like an ancient machine inside him was beginning to wake up, and the rusty gears and cogs began to groan and creak back to life. He was seeing everything with a newfound light, but The Soldier also found that light blinding. It suddenly was like he was only existing in a dream, but for the first time in as long as he could remember he was awake, alive, feeling and breathing. He was the existing embodiment of a paradox: yearning to learn more about what he was missing but being too scared to move forward. 

_What the hell is happening to me?_

He was terrified. But his instincts were telling him that he needed to get away. He needed to survive. Maybe there was more for him than the confusion and guilt he was feeling, and deep down something stirred in him that _did_ drive him forward. He was going to find out who he was.

The Soldier’s feet carried him away from the water and towards the closest buildings. Every muscle burned with each step, but he drove forward, kept moving. He had no idea how long he had been walking, but he found himself near some living spaces and had a twinge of self-consciousness hit him while he walked. He realized he was going to stick out like a sore thumb: metal arm, strange uniform, holding his injured arm, and he was still soaked to the bone. Luckily for him, the sun was starting to set which would give him some cover. 

A pile of clothes caught his eye as he attempted to keep in the shadows. It was next to a large book bag and a small metal cup, and The Soldier realized that a homeless individual was most likely living here. There was a dark grey sweater on the top of the pile which looked big enough for him to slip on easily, and he went to go grab it. Guilt overwhelmed him when he realized he’d be taking something from someone who had so little… But he also realized that he was in the same situation. He had nothing, nowhere to go… After a pause he picked up the sweater, still feeling guilty. There was another shirt in the pile as well, so at least the individual wouldn’t be left with nothing. Someday The Soldier would pay them back… somehow.

The buildings around him became bigger and taller as he moved forward, giving him even more cover. The sun was almost completely gone now, and The Soldier was left shaking violently with the cold that seeped down into his bones. At this rate his legs weren’t going to carry him for much longer, so he swung into an alley.

Here it was quiet, almost eerie, but at least he could rest without too much worry of being disturbed. The Soldier slumped down against the wall of the building and hit the ground with a soft thud, sighing with relief at the fact that he was finally sitting. The exhaustion he felt almost put him to sleep in the first few moments that he sat there, but he remembered that he needed to deal with his injured arm before anything else.

Carefully feeling around his arm, it became apparent to him that it wasn’t broken but was dislocated at the shoulder. He then realized that he was going to have to set it back into place himself. This wasn’t going to feel nice.

The Soldier took the sweater he was carrying and lifted it up to his mouth: something to muffled his screams which he knew were coming. He wrapped it around his shoulders so it wouldn’t fall away after he removed his hand. 

_Sit up straight._

_Deep breaths._

After a few inhales to ready himself, The Soldier grabbed him arm, closed his eyes, and **_snap!_**

His shoulder harshly clicked back into place, exactly how he wanted it to, but holy _hell_ did it hurt. The Soldier cried out in pain, biting down on the sweater as a few tears ran down his face. After a few moments he tried to relax his tensed up body, spitting out the sweater and leaning his head back against the wall behind him, panting and sweating. A sticky warmth seeped into his arm, but at least it wasn’t in as much pain as before. Now all he could do was let it heal on it’s own. 

The Soldier waited a couple minutes until his breathing was steady, and then carefully began taking off the jacket of his uniform. It was a slow process, as he still wanted to let his right arm rest, and so he sat there undoing the snaps and zippers with one hand. After a while he was able to carefully slip the jacket off of his injured arm, leaving him in only a tight black sleeveless shirt. He desperately wanted to leave it on to have an extra layer underneath the sweater, but it was still wet and thus was making him colder than he needed to be. He peeled it off, gasping at the sudden rush of cold air on his bare skin, and then quickly slipped on the sweater.

After everything was over, exhaustion once again swept over his entire body, making him drowsy. He picked up his knees and wrapped his arms around them, trying to keep in the little warmth he had. 

The sky above was dimly lit, a dusty blue-ish grey, and the stars had began to peek through the pale haze. Cars could be heard in the background, zooming in and out, a few honks sounding off every once in awhile. The city was starting to calm down for the night. The day was ending.

The Soldier sat there in the ally shivering, waiting for sleep to wash over him. The seconds ticked by and with each he felt more and more drowsy, more and more numb. He took a moment to look up at the sky and saw that the stars were now clearly visible. There was almost no cloud cover tonight, and he was in awe of how beautiful the view was even with the haze of city light creeping in. He’d completed many missions in the dark, using the lack of light as a way to move about without being seen. But throughout the decades he’d never stopped and looked above him, such a simple act, and he now saw what he had been missing.

His heart ached for someone who wasn’t there as he gazed at the sky. It was almost as if he was feeling sentimental, feeling deep down that he’s star gazed before and that he always had someone to share the moment with… Maybe Steve, but he just couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure about anything right now.

The Winter Soldier was now on his own, left alone to figure out where he belonged and how to keep himself alive in the meantime. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared, wasn’t confused beyond anything he’d ever felt before. But before he had the chance to think too much about his current situation, he drifted off into sleep. Today was over, and tomorrow was going to be a fresh start.


End file.
